Credit card fraud seems to be everywhere, and thieves love making use of internet shopping on the internet to steal people's credit card data because of the security it provides. Many consumers think the only option to be secure is to avoid shopping online all together. While this is a method to prevent credit card information from being stolen but it also means you can't purchase anything online again. The marketplace online for goods and services is growing at the rate of a whirlwind because customers are aware that they can easily find the best prices when shopping on the internet. If you don't shop online anymore, one would give up all these amazing deals. This method of avoiding fraud on credit cards is like deciding never to fly in an airplane again in order to stay away from terrorists. It is true that one wouldn't become a victim in any terrorist plot that involved planes, however it also means having to deal with the inconvenience of not being able to fly when traveling. As with everything else that happens in the world, the trick is not to escape the problem but to comprehend the problem and to adopt a smart strategy to minimize the chance of becoming a victim of fraud with credit cards when shopping on the internet.
Let's first discuss the steps to take if the credit card fraud occurred. There's no reason to panic. If the cardholder is notified that his or her credit card information has been compromised, the credit card company won't make the cardholder responsible for any charges that are fraudulent, even for charges that were not made prior to making the report that the credit card data was stolen. Credit card companies will shut down the card for further use and issue a replacement card in about a week or two, but this is still an issue that many prefer not to deal with, if possible.
Online shoppers can use Google's safe Browsing Tool to check if the website is safe to browse in the event that one is able to trust Google of course. This tool will inform you whether a site is suspicious or not when Google last checked it, and if the site has did anything suspicious in the past, and will also inform whether it's linked to sites that are suspicious, even if the site does not do any thing that is suspicious. To see if a website is safe, simply copy and paste "http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=" into the address field on the browser, and then add the url of the site to be visited. For example, to a company's website, just enter "http://www.google.com/safebrowsing/diagnostic?site=websiteurlhere.com" into the address bar of the browser being used. Once this is entered the Google tool will pop up a simple half page report that will tell you if the website it's referring to is safe or not.
Another level of protection that one can employ when purchasing online is to use reputable third party payment methods. Most people have heard of PayPal. They are most likely the most used third party payment method in the world. They permit customers to pay for goods or services using them. For example, this means that when a consumer purchases something it is not directly transferring money to the website she is purchasing from. She is paying the amount due to PayPal, and then PayPal reimburses the merchant, meaning that the merchant does not have access to her Amazon gutschein credit card number and the credit card information was not transmitted over the internet during this transaction. It does not matter if the customer shops at one website or a hundred websites. As long, as the payment method of a third party was used the credit card details were not transmitted, so that the data isn't floating across the internet on every website where a purchase is made. Other payment methods that are third party like PayPal are Google Wallet and Amazon Payments.
Armed with this information, online shoppers can now make sure the websites they go to are secure to shop at and be sure to not enter sensitive information when making purchases. So, there is no reason to ignore every opportunity to save money on shopping online due to fear of credit card information being stolen.